Italy’s Parliament failed to elect a new president of the republic in a second round of voting on Tuesday, with the country’s two opposing blocs engaged in intense negotiations aimed at resolving the political stalemate.
Giorgio Napolitano, a highly respected life senator backed by Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition, has emerged as the front-runner in the presidential race.
But his nomination has been rejected by Silvio Berlusconi, the outgoing prime minister, on the grounds that he was once a communist.
”Our electorate would not accept and would never understand why we would want to vote for a man who, though certainly worthy, represents the other side,” Berlusconi told reporters in between voting on Tuesday.
Napolitano played a key role in transforming the now-defunct Italian Communist Party into a social-democratic force after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A former speaker of Parliament, he was appointed interior minister in the Prodi government of 1996 and is seen as a moderate.
A candidate needs a two-thirds majority in order to be elected in the first three rounds of voting, meaning Napolitano is unlikely to be elected until Wednesday, when the quorum will be lowered.
In the meantime, most lawmakers loyal to the two coalitions chose to adopt a wait-and-see strategy by leaving their ballot papers blank.
While the centre-left has appeared united in backing Napolitano, divisions have emerged within Berlusconi’s conservative House of Freedoms alliance, with the National Alliance and the centrist UDC party calling on Berlusconi to back the left’s candidate, and the populist Northern League voicing its opposition to the former communist.
”I hope that the centre-right can resolve its internal divisions and unite its votes to those of the centre-left so as to elect Giorgio Napolitano as president,” said Piero Fassino of the Left Democrats, the largest party within Prodi’s coalition.
A first round of voting failed on Monday, underscoring the deep divisions that have emerged in the aftermath of last month’s closely contested general election.
That election was the closest in Italian history, with less than 0,1% of the 38-million votes cast separating the two coalitions.
A total of 1 009 eligible voters, comprising 629 members of the lower house, 322 senators and 58 regional representatives were casting their ballots in secret votes to elect a new head of state.
A third round of voting was to be held in the afternoon.
The presidential race has blocked Prodi’s plans to rapidly form a new government as he must now wait to receive his mandate from the successor of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, whose seven-year term expired this month. — Sapa-dpa